L.I.U.-Brooklyn Locks Out Professors Amid Contract Dispute

Classes begin on Wednesday at the Long Island University campus in Downtown Brooklyn, where administrators have locked out union faculty members while contract negotiations continue.Credit
Kevin Hagen for The New York Times

After failing to reach an agreement on a new faculty union contract, which expired on Aug. 31, the university’s administration then locked faculty members out of their offices and their email accounts and canceled their health insurance over the Labor Day weekend.

Those who teach at the Downtown Brooklyn campus, which serves many black, Hispanic and immigrant students, said the lockout was an unprecedented move intended to weaken the union, the Long Island University Faculty Federation, which is part of the American Federation of Teachers.

“That’s never happened before in the history of L.I.U. to my knowledge, or in the history of higher education,” said Jessica Rosenberg, a professor of social work and the president of the faculty federation, which represents about 230 full-time faculty members and several hundred adjunct professors.

On Tuesday, administrators for L.I.U. Brooklyn said that the lockout was a pre-emptive move, given the faculty’s history in negotiations. “The last five out of six contracts, the faculty has gone on strike, and they have created chaos and virtually shut down the institution at the start of classes,” said Gale Stevens Haynes, a vice president and university counsel. The faculty went on strike in 2011 for five days.

She said that in May, the union had seemed to signal its intentions by authorizing a strike at the end of bargaining.

But the union’s lawyer, Louie Nikolaidis, said that was a pro forma action, “something to have in our back pocket.”

“We were intending on showing up for work,” said Emily Drabinski, an associate professor and one of 12 librarians at the university. “You don’t prevent a strike by locking out your employees.”

On Tuesday afternoon, the union membership rejected the administration’s latest offer by a vote of 226 to 10. “The faculty has spoken,” Professor Rosenberg said.

In that offer, according to the union, the administration asked for a reduction in salaries for new adjuncts. It also eliminated a clause in place since 2000 that promised parity in pay for Brooklyn faculty members and those at the largest campus within the university’s system, C. W. Post in Brookville, N.Y.

The union added that nearly half of the full-time faculty on the Brooklyn campus make less money, some as much as 20 percent less, than those at C. W. Post. That results in salaries’ being about $10,000 lower, Mr. Nikolaidis said.

“We’re the minority campus,” Syed Ali, a sociology professor, said. “People get the feeling that they don’t care about the Brooklyn campus.”

Christopher Fevola, the university’s chief financial officer, said the most recent offer addressed this issue, including increases in salary as high as 22 percent over five years. The administration said the disparity in wages between the campuses was because of previous union decisions.

After the union vote, the L.I.U.-Brooklyn faculty senate voted 135 to 10 for no confidence in the L.I.U. president, Kimberly R. Cline, and its vice president for academic affairs, Jeffrey Kane.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

Deborah Mutnick, a professor of English for 30 years at L.I.U.-Brooklyn, sits on the executive committee for both the union and senate. “They precipitated a crisis,” she said of the administration’s lockout. “There’s no going back.”

The university has been preparing to staff its classes with replacement teachers, advertising on job websites and through its alumni network.

Ms. Haynes said that about 140 replacement teachers had been hired, and that they all had the proper accreditation and licensing.

At one point, Ms. Haynes was scheduled to teach a yoga class. The dean of students for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, David Cohen, a botanist, was going to teach ballet.

Ms. Haynes acknowledged that those were errors, and have since been corrected. She added that both positions have gone to “qualified” instructors. In response to concerns about the faculty’s medical care, Ms. Haynes said that Cobra benefits would be provided to cover health insurance for the union members.

“And it really fundamentally challenges the concept of collective bargaining,” he added. “If L.I.U. succeeds in breaking this union and succeeds in bringing in scabs — there is a giant pool of underemployed Ph.D.s out there — this could have a serious impact, not only on the university faculty, but it could spill out into public institutions.”

L.I.U. first sent a letter to students last week to say that it looked forward “to welcoming the faculty back to campus” as soon as this “situation” was resolved, and referred them to a website for updates. “Every dollar spent of faculty salaries and benefits is a dollar not spent on student scholarships, new labs and facilities or school safety,” Mr. Kane wrote.

That outraged at least one student.

“The administrators are using students as scapegoats to place a guilt on the faculty in order for them to accept whatever was offered,” Halim Nurdin, 24, a student at the university, said in an email.

The next bargaining session is planned for Thursday. Ms. Haynes said that was because the union had a protest planned for Wednesday, but Mr. Nikolaidis, the union’s lawyer, said the union wanted to bargain sooner.

“They told us, ‘We can’t do it because we’re scheduled to teach classes on Wednesday,’” Mr. Nikolaidis said, referring to administrators on the bargaining committee.

“The first thing they need to do is terminate the lockout,” he added. “While there is a lockout, it’s difficult to see a path of negotiating in good faith.”

A version of this article appears in print on September 7, 2016, on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Anticipating Strike, a Brooklyn College Locks Out the Faculty. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe